Poor Elijah’s Almanack: For whom the bells toll

Published 11:46 am, Monday, May 9, 2016

Our political system is passing through a rough patch. The Republicans’ leading billionaire populist apparently skipped ninth grade civics. Meanwhile, the Democratic front runner is struggling not to alienate potential supporters who believe one percent of the American people are somehow responsible for ninety-nine percent of our problems, a theory that’s understandably comforting for ninety-nine percent of us.

Amid the chaos both parties agree that public schools have problems. Politicians on both sides, though, seem to forget that most have been in office while the problems festered, which means that they’ve been doing the wrong thing, or that the solution lies beyond their power – or both.

Not that there’s been a shortage of proposed solutions. Never mind if it’s old. Give it a new name. Never mind if it didn’t work the last time, or if it already isn’t working this time, or if it’s entirely superficial. Turn it into a press release with photos of smiling students.

Remember the 1970s “open classroom” fad and the “schools without walls” the experts had us build? Remember the accordion room dividers and filing cabinets those schools bought in a hurry because nobody could stand all the noise and the aimless physical and intellectual wandering? Remember the theory that all you have to do is let each child study what he’s interested in – knights, squid, or helicopters – and he’ll eventually get around to a balanced academic diet?

Also all children always eat their vegetables.

Now fast forward two decades to the age of “school restructuring” and a 1990s “model for courageous change.” Central to this “innovative” classroom program was the children’s role, “constructing their own processes, learning paths, and knowledge bases.”

Don’t you love jargon? I let students make decisions where I think it’s appropriate, but what exactly does it mean to “construct” a “learning path”? And what’s a knowledge base, and how do I make my own up?

Naturally the class was “project oriented.” This meant there weren’t any tests. The other advantage to projects is you don’t have to waste time on boring chores like learning the multiplication tables and the names of the countries in South America. After all, why should students have to know stuff they aren’t interested in?

Forget about a domineering teacher. Instead this class employed a “facilitator,” who could offer “a unique blend of training, interest, and demonstrated skills in academics, arts, counseling, crisis intervention, problem‑solving, and building self‑esteem.” Also he conducted walking tours of the Sea of Galilee.

Who is anyone kidding? Once you hack away the rosy rhetoric, you’re left with two kinds of criteria. Some, like the messianic job description, simply reflect ideals endorsed by every decent teacher since Socrates. What teacher doesn’t want his class to be “a safe place for children to take risks...to learn and to grow”?

Other descriptors, though, like the anointing of a facilitator instead of a teacher, were more than just ideals. They were code words for the old regime, the ghosts of what was then already two decades past. The first time the “change agents” erupted onto the landscape with the fervor of radical youth. Then in the 1990s they reemerged as mid‑life, middleclass reformers, and once again they dragged the whole country along. Now forty years on, they’re back, never having gone away, in the company of a new generation of disciples.

This time instead of “restructuring,” they’re “transforming” education. They’re back with “project-based learning” that allows students to graduate without a broad understanding of the liberal arts and sciences. They’re back with scoring rubrics that cloak unreliable assessment in the garb of objectivity and “data.” They’re back with “student-centered” classrooms and facilitators who monitor children in front of video screens and in groups where they purportedly “teach each other.” They’re back with even more extensive “personal, social, and political” agendas that divert schools from teaching academics and undermine classroom discipline.

Am I against change? No. I’m just against change that makes things worse. I’m against empty words, empty promises, and easy answers. And I’m against being told that I’m stuck in the past because I won’t embrace ideas that failed when I was twenty.

Do you ever have doubts about the brave new plans you hear for our schools? You aren’t alone. And your questions deserve more than the public relations gloss they often receive from the experts who pretend to answer them.

The secret to success in the world of education? Always sound upbeat. Always offer a positive‑sounding solution, no matter how impractical, irrelevant, or trivial it actually is.

Poor Elijah learned this lesson at his first 1990s restructuring conference. The experts had invited a twenty‑four year old teacher to encourage everybody. He gushed about the ways his school was “reinventing” itself, including how they’d turned off all the passing bells and the difference this had made. He seemed euphoric.

Poor Elijah went home disappointed. He’d written a college paper in 1969 about eliminating bells entitled “Fascism in School Scheduling.” Some 1970s schools had disconnected theirs until they’d realized nobody was getting anywhere on time anymore. Then they’d hooked them back up. Of course, 1969 was more than ten minutes ago and well beyond the recall of the experts who rule the looking glass land of education.

I guess it’s time to turn the bells off again.

Peter Berger teaches English in Weathersfield, Vermont. Poor Elijah would be pleased to answer letters addressed to him in care of the editor.